Suspect In Murder Testifies

April 13, 1989|By BOB KEMPER Staff Writer

GLOUCESTER — It wasn't long after he got home from work that dreary morning that Andre B. Nelson got the phone call. It was Sammy Wilson, and Wilson wanted Nelson to pay him the $25 he owed for marijuana.

They met at a store near Harcum, Nelson said, and after smoking a marijuana cigarette, Nelson drove Wilson to Michael Ashby's house in Sassafras. While Wilson went into the house, Nelson said he laid down in the truck. The next thing he remembers is being awakened by Wilson tugging on the door handle.

"He said, `I'm ready,' and we left," Nelson said.

Later that Friday morning, Feb. 19, 1988, Ashby was found dead, shot in the back of the head with a powerful handgun, his body and home set on fire to cover the crimes.

On Monday, two days before he was to serve as a pallbearer at Ashby's funeral, Nelson was surrounded by police at his Middlesex County home and charged with capital murder, a charge that can carry a death sentence. He also is charged with robbery, arson and two counts of using a handgun.

On Wednesday, more than a year later, Nelson took the witness stand to give his version of what happened that morning. Wilson, who has not been charged in the crime, is expected to testify today.

Nelson's testimony came in the third day of his second murder trial, a day marked with some of the most dramatic testimony and most terse questioning so far in the proceedings. Nelson's first trial in December ended in a mistrial after lawyers learned that a witness was going to give unexpected testimony. It ended before Nelson had a chance to testify.

Wearing a gray suit and tie and a pink shirt, Nelson spoke calmly from the stand, sometimes addressing his comments to the jury, relaying his story about how Sammy Wilson killed Ashby, possibly because of drugs, while Nelson napped, unaware that the crimes were occurring.

He does admit that he cashed Ashby's stolen payroll check, but said he only did it because Wilson asked him to.

Nelson said he told authorities about Wilson because he feared that Wilson might harm his family.

Witnesses for the prosecution, however, disputed much of what Nelson said. Police officers who interviewed him just after his arrest said Nelson told them he was not at Ashby's house at all that day. They said he never mentioned Wilson during the questioning, and that he claimed that Ashby himself had given him the check.

Commonwealth's Attorney William H. Shaw III suggested that Nelson got the idea to blame Wilson after he talked with Sgt. Michael Nicely, an investigator with the Gloucester Sheriff's Department who questioned Nelson after his arrest. During that interview, Nicely asked Nelson if he knew Wilson. Nicely said he met Wilson at the fire scene when Wilson came up to him, upset, asking if Ashby was all right.

In other testimony Wednesday, Ampliss Walker, now in the county jail on a grand larceny charge, told the court that Nelson confessed to a killing while the two of them were in jail last year.

According to Walker, he was talking to Nelson about his own bail, when Nelson told him that his bail was much higher. "He said, `I'm in here because I killed somebody,' " Walker recalled.

Nelson denied the conversation.

Walker said he was afraid to testify against Nelson and fled the state last year to avoid the first trial. Authorities found him in Florida and brought him back for the new trial. In exchange for his testimony, Walker will have his grand larceny charge reduced to a misdemeanor and his six-month sentence suspended to time served.